Ralph Martin was the detective handling the on scene investigation. He
was chubby, completely bald, with bushy eyebrows and dark-rimmed
glasses. He avoided looking at the corpse.
“The call from the Butcher came in at ten of seven,” Martin said.
“We tried your home number immedi lately, but we weren’t able to get
through until almost eight o’clock.”
“My phone was off the hook. I just got out of bed at a quarter past
eight. I’m working graveyard.” He sighed and turned away from the
corpse. “What did he say-this Butcher?”
Martin took two folded sheets of paper from his pocket, unfolded them.
“I dictated the conversation, as well as I could recall it, and one of
the girls made copies.
my . Preduski read the two pages. “He gave you no clue to who else he’s
going to kill tonight?”
“Just what’s there.”
“This phone call is out of character.”
“And it’s out of character for him to strike two nights in a row,”
Martin said.
“It’s also not like him to kill two women who knew each other and worked
together.”
Martin raised his eyebrows. “You think Sarah Piper knew something?”
“You mean, did she know who killed her friend?”
“Yeah. You think he killed Sarah to keep her from talking?”
“No. He probably just saw both of them at the Rhinestone Palace and
couldn’t make up his mind which he wanted the most. She didn’t know
who-murdered Edna Mowry. I’d bet my life on that. Of course I’m not
the best judge of character you’ll ever meet. I’m pretty dense when it
comes to people. God knows. Dense as stone. But this time I think I’m
right. If she had known, she would have told me. She wasn’t the kind
of girl who could hide a thing like that. She was open.
Forthright.
Honest in her way. She was damned nice.”
Glancing at the dead woman’s face, which was surprisingly unmarked and
clear of blood in the midst of so much gore, Martin said. “She was
lovely.”
“I didn’t mean just nice-looking,” Preduski said. “She was a nice
person.
Martin nodded.
“She had a soft Georgia accent that reminded me of home.”
“Home?” Martin was confused. “You’re from Georgia?”
“Why not?”
“Ira Preduski from Georgia?”
“They do have Jews and Slavs down there.”
“Where’s your accent?”
“My parents weren’t born in the South, so they didn’t have an accent to
pass on to me. And we moved North when I was four, before I had time to
pick it up.”
For a moment they stared at the late Sarah Piper and at the pair of
technicians who bent over her like Egyptian attendants of death.
Preduski turned away from the corpse, took a handkerchief from his
pocket and blew his nose.
“The coroner’s in the kitchen,” Martin said. His face was pale and
greasy with sweat. “He said he wanted to see you when you checked in.”
“Give me a few minutes,” Preduski said. “I want to look around here a
bit and talk with these fellows.”
“Mind if I wait in the living room?”
“No. Go ahead.”
Martin shuddered. “This is a rotten job.”
“Rotten,” Preduski agreed.
The gunshot boomed and echoed in the dark corridor.
The lock shattered, and the wood splintered under the impact of the
bullet.
Wrinkling his nose at the odor of burnt powder and scorched metal,
Bollinger pushed open the ruined door.
The reception lounge was dark. When he found the light switch and
flipped it up, he discovered that the room was also deserted.
Harris Publications occupied the smallst of three business suites on the
fortieth floor. In addition to the hall door by which he had entered,
two other doors opened from the reception area, one to the left and one
to the i-ight. Five rooms. Including the lounge. That didn’t leave
Harris and the woman with many places to hide.
First he tried the door to the left. It led to a private corridor that
served three large offices: one for an editor and his secretary, one for
an advertising space salesman, and one for the two-man art department.
Neither Harris nor the woman was in any of those rooms.